Benjamin Franklin Brashears, 1872-1919
Marshall Brashears was shot during the investigation of a burglary at
the home of a vacationing businessman. The vacationing owner returned
home unexpectedly, thought he was being robbed and shot what he thought
was the intruder. Tragically, he shot the marshall of Panama, Oklahoma.

Early History of Whidbey Island

Whidbey Island was once inhabited by members of the
Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, Snohomish and other Native American
tribes. The first known European sighting of Whidbey Island was during
the 1790 Spanish expedition of Manuel Quimper and Gonzalo López de
Haro. Joseph Whidbey, master of HMS Discovery under the command of
Captain Vancouver, discovered Deception Pass in 1792 and fully explored
it. In so doing, he proved that Whidbey Island, thought by the early
Spanish explorers to be part of the mainland, was in reality an island.
Vancouver named this land Whidbey Island in honor of the officer who
discovered it.

Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the United
States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842, sailed the USS Vincennes into
Penn Cove in 1841. Wilkes named the lower cove Holmes Harbor, after his
assistant surgeon, Silas Holmes.

In 1850, Colonel Isaac N. Ebey became the first
permanent settler on Whidbey Island, claiming a square mile of prairie
with a southern shoreline on Admiralty Inlet. Even though he was
farming potatoes and wheat on his land, he was also the postmaster for
Port Townsend, Washington, and rowed a boat daily across the inlet in
order to work at the post office there. On August 11, 1857, Colonel
Ebey was murdered and beheaded by North Coast Indians who travelled
from the Queen Charlotte Islands. It's believed that Ebey, 39, was
slain in retaliation for the killing of 27 tribal members, including a
chief, by the U.S. warship Massachusetts the
previous year.

Fort Ebey was established in 1942 on the west side of
the central part of the island, just northwest of Coupeville. The fort
was named in honor of Colonel Ebey. The house that Ebey lived in with
his family still stands, near the beachfront.

Admiralty Head Lighthouse is located in this area, on
the grounds of Fort Casey State Park. The area around Coupeville is the
federally protected Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve,
named in honor of Isaac Ebey.